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By Salman Hussein

Terrorist attack shakes Musharraf's govt.
Despite claims by the government that it has the law and order situation under control, its killing time again in Karachi. Fourteen people, including 11 French nationals were killed and twenty-three others were injured outside the Sheraton Hotel in Karachi in a terrorist bomb attack on Wednesday. The injured included 12 French and 11 Pakistanis. The blast occurred when the bus was picking up engineers and other workers involved in a joint Pakistan-France submarine construction project. The French nationals worked for a French state-owned company DCN (Direction des Constructions Navales), that has helped Pakistan build its three Agosta 90B class submarines.

While the French government blamed Al Qaeda for the attack, Karachi's police chief, Kamal Shah, was less specific about the culprits. Shah said: "We cannot rule out the involvement of Al Qaeda and will investigate its possible involvement." Experts, however, said the attack's modus operandi resembled Al Qaeda's. The attack used a suicide bomber, it targeted Western civilians, no one has so far claimed responsibility for it and it used high quantities of explosives.

The Wednesday's blast in Karachi is the worst attack since the March attack in a church in Islamabad which killed five people including the daughter and wife of an American diplomat. The March attack coincided with the trial of the accused, including Sheikh Omar Saeed, in the Daniel Peral murder case. Meanwhile, the New Zealand cricket team touring Pakistan and scheduled to play the Karachi test called off the tour and has returned home.

Earlier, on Tuesday, a Sunni scholar, Dr Murtaza Malik was gunned down along with his driver in Lahore as he stepped out of his car. Later, the assassins shot down a policeman who tried to prevent them from fleeing the scene of the crime. Experts say there is a general sense among law enforcement agencies that this is just the beginning of a dangerous wave of terrorist strikes. Sources say intelligence agencies have already warned the government against more such attacks.

The situation in Karachi has been deteriorating for the past couple of weeks. The count began with the murder of Wiqar Ahmed, an activist of the outlawed extremist Sunni-Deobandi group Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan. Ahmed was shot dead by two unidentified assailants riding a motor-bike. The same evening a Shia doctor, Tariq Rizvi, was shot and injured while he was attending his clinic in Khokrapar.
The next day Syed Zafar Mehdi, Principal of the Jamia Millia Polytechnic Institute, was killed along with his driver, Mir Zaman, and his peon, Mukhtar Ahmed. Police believe Mehdi was the target while the other two got killed because they were traveling with him in his car to the office. Witnesses told police the killers shouted slogans of "Allah-o-Akbar, Kafir, Kafir Shia Kafir (God is great; Shia are apostates) while fleeing the crime scene.

Police sources say in the past three months, over 40 people have been killed in sectarian violence. Most were low-key citizens residing in smaller localities of the city. "If areas like Lyari, which even remained peaceful during the worst ethnic and sectarian violence, is unsafe then there is need to feel worried. It means that the violence is now spreading far and wide," Sharif Baluch, a resident of the area, told TFT.

"If you visit Lyari these days, you can feel the change," he said. Hundreds of Lyari residents have joined militant and jihadi groups. "The change is recent, and it is the fallout of Afghanistan," he said. Gulshan-e-Iqbal is another area, which remained peaceful during the worst periods of violence in Karachi. It is not safe any more. Over 200 madrassas have sprung up there in recent times and sectarian killings have increased in this middle-class locality.

Nazimabad and North-Nazimabad, two other middle-class areas and strongholds of Muttahida Qaumi Movement, MQM, have also changed in character. Sectarian killings are now common in this part of the city. Orangi Town, one of the biggest slums in Asia, which is dominated by Biharis and Pathans is perhaps the worst-hit by sectarian killings.

In the past two years, some 100 people, including doctors, have been killed in Karachi in sectarian violence. Many doctors have closed their clinics and shifted to other places. Talking to TFT, deputy chief of Jamaat-i-Islami, Prof. Ghafoor Ahmed, described the situation as "volatile and extremely dangerous".

The Wednesday attack has now added another dimension to the violence in Karachi. Police sources say this is the first incident of suicide bombing in Pakistan, a phenomenon common in the Middle East, Sri Lanka and the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. "We have now to figure out whether the bomber who carried out the attack in Karachi was an Arab or a Pakistani national," a police officer told The Friday Times.
While General Pervez Musharraf immediately went into a meeting with his national security council and emerged from there saying the government would take drastic measures to put down terrorism, experts remain skeptical about Islamabad's ability to do so.

"Terrorists will always have the element of surprise. The law enforcement apparatus in Pakistan is mostly ill-equipped and poorly trained. There are too many disgruntled elements out there. Moreover, Musharraf has lost a lot of good will because of his political ambition. He has alienated almost everyone," says an analyst. He adds: "He should immediately make peace with the political parties and form a government of national consensus to address the issue of terrorism."
- The Friday Times, Pakistan

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